What Voters ‘Don’t Ask’ but Can ‘Tell’ About Obama’s Race

Devon Carbado

Los Angeles Daily Journal – Monday, April 28, 2008

People are still talking about Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race, and the commentary remains mostly positive. Yet, this enthusiastic response obscures that the speech might not have happened, and the very reason that it ultimately did.  Obama’s racial double bind: He can be neither “too black” nor “not black enough.”

Prior to the controversy Obama’s minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, generated, few would have predicted that Obama’s presidential bid would include a major speech on race.  The thinking, at least in part, was that any such speech could make Obama “more black” and therefore less electable.

Wright’s racially charged statements changed the calculus. They made Obama “more black.”  To understand how, think of race not only as a “status” based on how people look but also as “conduct” based on how people are perceived to act.

This status/conduct distinction is regularly employed to discuss sexual orientation.  Indeed, it helps to explain “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy the military employs to police gay and lesbian participation in the Armed Forces.  People in the military who are perceived to “act gay or lesbian” are more vulnerable to discharge than those who are perceived to “act straight.”

Sex discrimination, too, operates along a status/conduct dichotomy.  Women experience discrimination based not only on their identity status (their sex as females), but also on their identity conduct: whether they are perceived to act too manlike (masculine) or not womanlike enough (feminine).

Race functions in a similar way.  Obama explicitly recognized this in his speech, observing that “at various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either ‘too black’ or ‘not black enough.’”

This “too black”/”not black enough” phenomenon is part of a racial divide we talk very little about. Crudely, the divide is that some whites are uncomfortable with blacks who are “too black” and some blacks are uncomfortable with those who are “not black enough.” 

A person can be “too black” or “not black enough” not only based on mixed race ancestry, but also based on their name, dress, speech/accent/ residence, choice of a partner, politics, religious affiliation and place of worship. Voters can employ each of these social facts to “tell” Obama’s degree of blackness. They don’t have to “ask.”

Reverend Wright’s racial remarks told some white voters that Obama was more black than they had imagined, thus his drop in the polls immediately after Wright’s comments circulated. Obama had to respond. But he couldn’t simply repudiate Wright. To some black voters, that would have made him not “black enough.”

So what exactly did Obama do?  He criticized, but did not disown Wright and spoke about racial inequality.  While this reduced the likelihood that blacks would consider him not “black enough,” it made it more likely that whites would consider him “too black.”

This did not happen, however, because in addition to calling attention to racism, Obama highlighted our collective capacity to beat it.  His push for unity, cooperation and responsibility across the color line reassured white voters that he was not “too black” and restored his standings in the polls.

Does this mean that America’s take on Obama’s race is settled?  No. As Obama’s speech reminds us, race is “not static.”  Still, however our racial views of Obama change, the degree to which he is perceived be “too black” or “not black enough” likely will continue to matter.

This sounds silly.  After all, there is no true way to “act black.”  But nor is there a true way to “look black,” notwithstanding that we commonly draw on facial features and skin color to speak in those terms.  Because both “looking black” and “acting black” are socially determined, the notion that a person acts (or does not act) black is no more absurd than the notion that a person looks (or does not look) black.

This is one of the lessons that our responses to Obama’s speech, and the fact that it was a reaction to Wright’s comments, teach: that people are judged both by the color of their skin and the content of their racial conduct. If this is happening in the political arena, you can bet it’s happening in other aspects of American life.